


Nailing It

by TakeTheShot



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Attack of the goo-shooting robot, Avengers Tower, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint rejects your gender stereotypes, Feet and toes, Fluff, Gen, General niceness, Girl's night, Glitter, Good bros all round, I just wanted to write something nice for them because Infinity War is coming and I'm scared, In case you hadn't guessed I'm just ignoring everything in the MCU that upsets me, Just silly crack fluff, Lola lives too, M/M, No Laura Barton, No Ultron, Not Canon Compliant, Pampering, Phil Coulson lives, Set in the 'good' universe where everyone likes each other, Sorry Not Sorry, no civil war, not AoS compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 19:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14064141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakeTheShot/pseuds/TakeTheShot
Summary: Clint Barton is bored. He doesn't want to do science, and he doesn't want to hit things. He doesn't even want to shoot arrows. So what are the girls up to? Oh, yes, he wants to do that.When Clint follows his glittery little heart and surprises several people. Including attack of the goo-shooting robot (Not a euphemism!) and some Iron Man-Hawkeye mission shenanigans.It's basically a whole bunch of cracky fluff.





	Nailing It

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've read soooo many older fics recently, you know, those ones when Clint didn't have a secret family, Coulson wasn't dead, the Avengers actually liked each other and everyone lived happily ever after in Avengers Tower like a bunch of good world-saving best mates. And I wanted me some of that. Because Infinity War is coming and I'm scared. Hence this bunch o' tooth-rotting fluff which sprang from a throwaway line in one of the millions of fics I've devoured this week (it's been that kind of week) about Clint envying a certain accessory of Natasha's (I'm not saying what, I'm trying to surprise you!).
> 
> Enjoy!

Clint is jealous. That’s what he’s feeling, definitely jealous. Tony and Bruce are doing science in one of the labs downstairs (not his forte), Rogers is punishing yet another bag in the gym (not his style), Coulson is away cleaning up after a mission with Shield (not his fault, honest), and Thor is back on Asgard this week (not his idea of a holiday). Even taking some time down at the range doesn’t appeal tonight and so Clint has been wandering the tower in search of something to do. He hadn’t meant to intrude, to walk into the team lounge when Pepper and Natasha are having one of their private moments but now that he has, he’s finding it very hard to look away. He sees better from a distance and from away on this side of the room, what he can see, he wants. The way they’re huddled close together, blonde head bent to red, the soft little laughs peppering their quiet chat, the way their hands glide as they move over each other and the breathy sighs that slide causes, yeah, he wants. It’s gorgeous, all those colours. He breathes in, the air bright with the scent of the lotion they’re indulging in and that other smell, that stronger, sharper undertone, it makes his gut twist. He wants to be in the middle of that. He knows it isn’t standard, for a guy like him, but, hell with it, since when has standard been any fun? 

Tasha looks up as he steps forward, her hands still moving over Pepper. She’s smirking.  
“Clint Barton, as I live and breathe. We wondered when you’d come to join in. Looking just not good enough any more?”  
“Not really.” He hesitates, and if the tiniest hint of a blush flushes his face he’s blaming the heat. Stark always has the damn thermostat set too high in the Tower, who can help a bit of red in the cheeks? He brazens it out. “Room for a little one?”  
Pepper groans one last time, and pulls away from Natasha’s hands lifts her head a little blearily, “Sure, I’m about done, any more of that and I will pass out completely.” She past the seat between them. “Hop in.”

He does so, vaulting neatly over the back of the sofa to land between the two women who are both now smiling at him wickedly.  
“To be honest,” Pepper says, “I didn’t think it would take you so long, you’ve been staring like a dog with its tongue hanging out for weeks now. Every time we’ve done this, actually. Didn’t have you pegged for shy Clint.”  
He shrugs. “Well, it’s not exactly usual, is it? This?”  
“Usual, pfft.” Natasha is dismissive. “Since when do you care about usual? What you want, you want. And that’s just fine with us, isn’t it Pepper?”  
“Oh, totally fine with me. It’s pretty great actually, I have no objection to an extra body at girl’s night.” She slides a tiny bit closer. “Question is, now you’re here, what exactly do you want to happen? This?” She grabs the lotion tub from the coffee table and shakes it at him teasingly, unleashing another wave of peppermint that makes his nose tingle. He swallows quickly.  
“Nah, to be honest, I was thinking of getting straight to the main event, as it were. If that’s okay with you two?”  
Natasha chuckles. “Clint Barton, never let it be said he kept a lady waiting.” She slides, graceful as always, to the floor at his feet. “Okay, but you don’t know what you’re missing. My hands are lethal in more than just the obvious ways…”  
Pepper, laughing to slips down to join her. “They really are deadly you know, some might say magic. But, if you’re in such a hurry to get finished?” She waits for Clint’s nod. “Fair enough, she’ll get you next time.” Turning back to the table Pepper swipes a handful of supplies and hands a bottle over. “Tasha, you think this will suit?”  
“Absolutely.” Natasha shows Clint the cap. “We picked this up just for you after Pepper noticed you practically salivating at us. You have a choice of purple, or, purple.”  
Clint grins. “Purple is pretty perfect.”  
The ladies can’t help but smile back at his enthusiasm. “Great. Hold the foot rub 'til next time then. Pepper, you file, I’ll paint. Barton, get your toes over here and for everyone’s sake, hold still.”

Ten minutes later and Clint has the most perfectly purple set of toenails that were ever painted. He stares at them, flexing his feet, still as limber as the rest of him from years of barefoot acrobatics and circus stunts, and twists his ankles back and forth so the paint catches the light. It’s metallic and glints enticingly. He knows the smile on his face is a little dopey, but can’t help it, he is quite thoroughly smitten. He whistles. “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”  
“Told you she had magic hands.” Pepper rises to sit back on the sofa. “Never a stroke out of place.”  
Natasha joins them and admires her work too. “Of course there isn’t. Accuracy is my specialty. Oh, knock it off Barton,” she grumbles as he wiggles his toes and poses them again, “You’re meant to be a hawk, not a peacock.” She’s pretending to grouse, but her voice is warm.  
Dignified, he replies “I see no reason why a man can’t be both,” and then ruins it with an honest to God giggle. “I look awesome.”  
“You do.” Pepper agrees. “But girl’s night is reciprocal, and that’s the deal.” She hands him another bottle, a dark, deadly red this time and points him in the direction of Natasha’s unadorned toes. “Are your hands as steady with a brush as they are with a bow?”  
He gives his toes one more admiring look and lifts Tasha’s foot into his lap. “Of course they are. I’m astonished you had to ask.”

 

Several weeks later and Clint is a firmly established part of girl’s night, and yes, Natasha’s, and Pepper’s, hands have been tested and both are definitely up there with Harry Potter’s wand on the list of magical items. Something he is sure he will be very glad of once this stupid bloody mission is finished. He skids round a corner and ducks as a jet of something viscous and nauseatingly orange whizzes past his head to sizzle unpleasantly on the sidewalk.  
“Aw, shit, what the hell is it with super villains these days? Who builds goo shooting robots for crying out loud? Why would anyone want a goo shooting robot anyway?”  
“Barton, I’m thankful that I have no idea.” The answer comes from overhead where Tony hovers, directing his Iron Legion in evacuating civilians from the area. They don’t know exactly what the gunk is but it’s hot and it stinks and it sets pretty hard, better safe than sorry. He swoops lower. “However, JARVIS has finished scanning the damn thing and thankfully someone has been watching too much Star Wars. There’s a control panel just inside that black band, slightly off centre, where it rotates. See it?”  
Clint pops his head quickly round the edge of the building, eyes the robot and ducks back before he gets a face full of deadly marmalade. “I see it.”  
“Well, consider that your Death Star exhaust vent. One controlled shot to take that out and the whole things shuts down. This one’s on you Katniss.”  
“On me, sure, of course it’s on me,” Clint grumbles, choosing a bodkin point armour piercing arrow and nocking it, “leave it up to the guy in the leather vest armed with a stick and a piece of string, you’re only the one with full body armour and lasers. Sure, I’ll take out the giant homicidal jam machine.”  
“Buddy, if I could, I would, but this needs your particular brand of precision.”  
“Sure Stark, sure, any excuse.” He spots quickly round the corner again, finds his mark. “Cover me.”

Darting out, Clint sights on the panel, brings up his bow and draws, moves to step into the shot. Except, he can’t. He’s been so focused on the panel that he hasn’t looked at the floor and now he’s stepped firmly into the centre of a cooling puddle of the goo and it’s holding fast, trapping his feet.  
“Aw, shit.”  
He draws again, but the shot’s no good at this angle, he needs to shift. He tugs experimentally at his boots, but they aren’t going anywhere and, worse, the leather is getting uncomfortably hot. Damn.  
“Barton, what are you playing at? It’s going to see you!”  
Double damn. Tony’s right, the head turret of the thing is definitely swinging his way. Nothing for it. Clint bends and begins unbuckling his boots. Which is not easy, one handed, but damned if he’s going to put his bow down in goo. (For the first time he regrets choosing boots with so many straps, but they’d just looked so damn cool when Coulson had showed him the uniform choices, how could he resist? Peacock indeed). The robot thing is whirring menacingly, it’s definitely seen him, it has to be targeting. Triple damn.  
“Stark! Gonna need a lift!” The last buckle gives and Clint throws his hand up just as the robot releases a stinking volley of sludge. There is an impact that would rip the arm off a lesser man (thank you circus for the trapeze training) and Stark has him in the air just before it hits. Clint stares wildly down, and grins.  
“It didn’t get my boots!”  
“I swear Cinderella, if you don’t stop obsessing about your damn footwear and shoot that fucking thing…”  
“Yeah yeah, keep your helmet on, I’m on it.” He takes a breath. “Okay, drop me.”  
“What?”  
“Drop me! I can’t shoot while you’re holding my hand, genius! Drop me!”  
Tony obeys, trusting Clint to do his job. And he does. Twisting in the air as he falls (thank you circus again) Clint lines up the arrow still firmly nocked to his bowstring (thank you Shield R and D) and lets fly. Straight as a die it drops and buries itself deep in the panel, setting off a spectacular shower of sparks. The robot freezes. Clint whoops, then yells, still falling towards the piles of orange gunk, “Stark! The ‘catch me’ was implied man, come on!”  
He swears he can feel the heat from the luminous crap and is just contemplating holding his nose when metal arms grab him, round the chest this time, and he’s airborne again. He scans the floor, and there they are, still trapped but otherwise unhurt as far as he can tell.  
“Down there Stark! I wanna get my boots!”  
Unfortunately, the robot, which has been vibrating gently (and then less gently) for the last few moments, chooses this exact second to explode, sending a final tidal wave of tangerine nastiness down the street and over, inexorably, finally, inescapably, over his boots. Clint’s heart sinks.  
“Aw, boots, no.”  
“Chill Katniss,” Tony’s chuckle sounds in his ear, “I will buy you a dozen pairs of new boots for that shot. Damn it, ‘drop me’, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Nicely done though. JARVIS, StarkTech clean up crews?”  
The AI replies instantly, as always. “On their way Sir.”  
“Excellent. Back to the Tower then Barton, can’t have you walking round the city in bare feet.”  
He turns the suit towards the Tower, still holding Clint under the armpits. This is hardly dignified. Clint huffs.  
“Oh, fuck off Stark.”

 

Back at the Tower and Tony drops Clint on his balcony where he waits while the automatic system removes the suit and delivers Tony back down to him. Tony waves him off.  
“Alright Barton, I’ll go call in the report to Coulson, I can cover it, you go get yourself some socks or something, your feet must be freez…” he glances down. “Holy shit, Clint, did you paint your toenails?”  
Clint lifts one foot and flexes it, wiggles his toes at Tony. They’re purple again, of course, this time with a cool holographic glitter. He smiles “Nope.”  
“Did you inhale too many goo fumes? Because all evidence would point to the contrary.”  
“Technically, I didn’t paint them. Natasha did.”  
“Natasha?” Tony’s incredulous. “The Black Widow painted your toenails.”  
“Yep.” Now Clint’s grinning. “Well, the purple anyway. The CEO of Stark Industries did the glitter.”  
Tony’s eyes fairly boggle out of his head. “Pepper painted your toenails? Pepper? We are talking Miss Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts, yes? My Pepper?”  
“Yep.”  
“When?”  
“Girl’s night. When you and Bruce are doing your Science Bro thing and Steve’s off beating the shit out of inanimate objects, we do this. Well, sometimes we shoot sharp things at targets and pretend they’re people we don’t like, but this is waaay more relaxing. You like?”  
Tony doesn’t answer, and Clint has discovered a miracle, something that makes Tony Stark speechless. Finally, after gaping like a codfish for a good thirty seconds, he manages to croak, “Why? A guy, a guy like you? Why?”  
Clint frowns, “Aw, now, don’t go imposing gender norms on me now Stark, they won’t take.” Smiling brightly, he explains, “Two reasons, first, I like it. It’s pretty and damn we don’t get enough pretty in this job. Orange goo robot as case in point. And second, well, that’s a secret.” He slings and arm around Tony’s shoulders, guides him inside. “Let me tell you a little something about your girlfriend and Natasha’s magic hands.”

Less than an hour later, Clint is grinning again and he passes the sofa on his way to call the elevator, new boots happily buckled to his feet. The sound of a deep moan catches his ear and, once the button is pressed, he goes over to lean on the back cushion look into the face of a completely blissed out Tony Stark, reclining, no, slumping, almost boneless as the ladies work him over, one foot each, the scent of peppermint strong in the air. Clint smirks. “Girl’s night working for ya is it Tones?  
“Ahhhh, absolutely.” Tony doesn’t even open his eyes. “I may never move again.”  
“He makes even more ridiculously amusing noises than you do Barton,” Natasha says.  
“Very true,” Pepper agrees, giggling. “And I think he’ll like what we have picked out for him next.” She nods her head towards the table and Clint laughs at the little bottles waiting there, red and gold, naturally.  
“I’m sure you’re right, Pepper, you usually are. Well, enjoy! I’ll catch you guys later. Much, much later, with any luck.”  
Tony struggles to twist his head round, peers through heavy-lidded eyes. “You’re not joining today?”  
“Me? Nah. Not today. I have a date.”  
“Oh, well, in that case. Have a good time, Twinkle Toes.” Tony’s head flops back, eyes shut again. “Though I have to say, I can see why you let them do this, this foot rub thing, it is bliss.”  
It’s Natasha’s turn to smirk. “Oh, that’s not why he gets us to do it, Tony not at all.”  
One eye cracks open. “It’s not?”  
“Nope.” Clint’s voice is low, rough and naughty. “It’s the look on Coulson’s face when he sees them. I swear, it shorts out his circuits. Nothing quite like it.”  
And with that, he straightens up, blows the ladies a kiss and is in the elevator even as Tony drags himself up, frowning, puzzled, “Coulson’s face? Why would he see….”  
The elevator doors slide closed and, as they do, Clint fires Tony a wink, lascivious even by billionaire playboy standards. The drop down the shaft is not quite quick enough to mask Tony’s cry,  
“Oh my God! Nobody tells me anything!”

 

Clint is still grinning as the doors open again and he steps out, walking towards the red Chevrolet Corvette purring happliy by the curb. He bounces into his seat and receives a lingering kiss from her driver, whose eyes smile behind his sunglasses. As they pull away, he glances down.  
“New boots?”  
“They certainly are,” Clint smiles curling his toes with their secret surprise, “and if you’re a good boy, later I may show you how they come off.”  
The laugh that earns sends his grin from ear to ear and he settles back into the seat, one hand outstretched to rest on Phil’s warm and solid thigh. He sighs, happily. Twinkle toes indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at an Avengers fic and my first posting on AO3 so all feedback will be very much appreciated.


End file.
